I saw a report that It is one of the few Spanish villages not to have been covered neither by Google Street View nor by Apple Look Around. I checked google maps and they're right street view ends at the entrance to the village, though I haven't been able to find out why

But of course, the quickest thing you will learn about Trasmoz is its connection witchcraft and its rivalry with the Catholic Church

Witchcraft and the Monastery

It all starts with a classic war for local resources. 

The lordship of Trasmoz was founded in the 1185, though many contemporaries from the time say it existed some time before that. Trasmoz spent many of its early years being the rope in a tug of war between the Kingdom of Navarre and the Kingdom of Aragon.

But by the 13th century Trasmoz was a thriving and wealthy fiefdom of 10,000 individuals, full of iron and silver mines and vast wood and water reserves, it was a pretty banging place. 

Just a stone's throw east was the Catholic Monastery of Veruela (Monasterio de Santa María de Veruela), founded in 1146. It's not clear what came first, Trasmoz or the Monastery, but I doubt it really mattered as the two squabbled like children.

The monks really didn't like Trasmoz, first because it was a lay territory and didn't have to pay the monastery like many of communities in the area. But second, and maybe more importantly, that while there were a handful of Catholics in Trasmoz, the population was primarily a mix of Jews, Christians and Arabs

So you know, heathens. Which also means they gave very few fucks about what the Monastery thought of them. The perfect recipe for a feud. 

The Quarries

The earliest records of their conflict date back to 1184, the exact reasons are a little hazy as the few truly scholastic sources I had found were naturally hundreds of pages long papers and were in Spanish, so as usual I turn to google translate

In 1184 Alfonso II gifted a quarry to the Monastery for the purpose of building expansions to the Monastery itself and homes in the area. So the Monastery begins trying to haul stone and this is where this record comes from:

So I set up and I command and command that neither the people of Trasmonti nor of any other place presuming that the presiding assembly on the aforesaid place was aware of the contrariety or disturbance, or nor hinder his men from their carts

So yeah, the monastery is trying to mine and haul material away but the people of Trasmoz didn't like that, and they couldn't stop the mining, so they just blocked the roads that the carts required to move between the quarry and the monastery

You see, in 1179 the land where the quarry was located was given to Trasmoz. And thus began a feud that would go on for the next 3 centuries

As Alfonso II currently owned this area, there wasn't a whole like that Trasmoz could do but make the hauling as inconvenient as possible for the Monastery

The Firewood and Excommuncation

Phase 2 of Trasmoz's "harass the monks" plan begins on Apr 24 1234 when King James I of Aragon donates the holm oak forest of Vera (Monte de la Mata) to the Veruela Monastery , we know this because the writ that granted it has been recorded. And it says very clearly, undeniably so, to cut any trees in the requires explicit permission from the monks

So naturally Trasmoz "devastated" the forest and I guess that was the last straw for the monks. The Monastery petitions a bishop from the nearby city of Tarazona to excommunicate Trasmoz. And sometime between Dec 1251 and Jan 1252 this excommunication was made official. 

What exactly is excommunication? Well it's the process that expels an individual from the Kingdom of Heaven for all eternity. By excommunicating the entire village, this would mean they would not be allowed to go to confession or take part in any of the holy sacraments of the Catholic church

This might have actually been a viable threat if the wealthy community of Trasmoz wasn't primarily a mix of Jews, Christians and Arabs, who had no interest in "repenting". And repent is all they would have had to do to get out from under this excommunication. But they honestly just didn't give af, which seemed to only infuriate the church more 

The Witchcraft

The common story you see of this was excommunication was because of witchcraft, something even the people of Trasmoz today insist is the truth. But I couldn't find anything at this point that suggested anything to do with witchcraft. This was a couple centuries before the witch hunts would begin in earnest.

But what was popular at this time especially among Jewish and Arab populations was alchemy. I don't have any evidence that was something that was going on at Trasmoz but we do know that around this time in Toledo, alchemy was a big hit. It's a possibility with the high concentration of those cultures in the area that alchemy was practiced and to some it was a kind of witchcraft. Whatever it was, from what I could tell, Trasmoz wasn't too bothered by their excommunication

What the Monastery said to the bishop to get the excommunication is unknown, maybe they did use the fact that the Trasmoz people by and large weren't catholic to argue that they were heathens. Or maybe they just simply complained that the town was making things difficult for them, I don't know what the requirements for an excommunication request entails exactly, but I do know it's highly unusual for an entire village to be excommunicated 

More Excommunication?

I have also seen mentions of excommunication of Tasmoz in 1255, 3-4 years later by an Abbot Andrés de Tudela [served as abbot between 1254-1259], of the Monastery of Veruela. Since the Abbot served between 1254-1259 he couldn't be the one to sanction the excommunication in 1251-1252 which is the dates I see most often for the event. It's possible another decree was thrown while this Abbot was serving, or that these details have since been mixed up. 

The Real Witchcraft

Flash forward 20 years and this is where we get our first traceable rumors of witchcraft. At night people had begun to hear sounds of scraping and hammering from inside Trasmoz castle. This goes on for some time until Oct 26 1276, when Don Pedro Ramirez and his son were sentenced to death. The reason being they had been caught making fake currency in the castle of Trasmoz

"During the 13th Century, the castle occupants dedicated their time to forging fake coins. And to keep the people of Trasmoz from investigating all that scraping and hammering, they spread a rumour that witches and sorcerers were rattling chains and forging cauldrons to boil magic potions at night. It worked, and Trasmoz was forever associated with witchcraft." BBC's Spain's cursed village of witches

I've seen this both ways, that Trasmoz started the rumors to conceal their illegal activity or that the Monastery did to further discredit the community, both seem viable and it's very likely the actual events were a mixture of these.

Regardless of the original source, the reputation stuck to Trasmoz like glue, forever becoming associated with sorcery and witchcraft

Water and the Curse

Fast forward a couple centuries to the early 1500s and the monastery and Trasmoz are at it again. This time the Monestary made the first move, redirecting the river that ran by the monastery, preventing it from going to Trasmoz which relied on it for water.

This was the last straw. The lord of Trasmoz, Pedro Manuel Ximinez de Urrea had had about a-fucking-nough and takes up arms and is ready to fight the monastery. I was unable to find out if the people of Trasmoz and the monks came to actual blows, but the problem was brought before King Ferdinand II, who rules that Trasmoz was in the right and that the Monastery had to let them have access to the water.

It's at this point that the monastery reaches its breaking point, but Trasmoz was already excommunicated, what else could they do? Petition the Pope Julius II of course, asking for authorization to curse Tasmoz! They alleged that Pedro Manuel and the people of Trasmoz had been blinded by witchcraft

It's said in 1511 the Monastery placed their curse through a ritual performed at the monastery where they chanted psalm 108, which is allegedly the most powerful tool the Church possesses to pronounce a curse

"To make it effective with greater solemnity, the supposed chronicles of the time tell of a macabre staging in the middle of the night. After covering the crucifix on the altar with a black veil, the abbot recites Psalm 108 of the Bible in which God curses his enemies, while accompanying his songs with forceful bell rings. The sentence had been executed" La Vanguardia

It's said that since the curse was sanctioned by the Pope, only a Pope has the power to lift it. None have done so to this day.

And while normally I wouldn't put much faith in curses especially those "cast" by a Catholic monastery, it's hard to deny the fact that Trasmoz endured many hardships after this

The Fall of Trasmoz

Trasmoz had already been on a downward trend when it was cursed, in 1492 Spain ordered the expulsion of Jews and the Muslims not long after causing that population of about 10,000 to shrink down to 700

Then the castle caught fire in 1520. Then the fortress was abandoned in 1530

Today Trasmoz only has 47 residents as of 2021, only half of which live here permanently. The village today has no shops, no school and only one bar. Many houses are in disrepair and the streets are mostly empty.

And Then Along Came a Poet

Often this is where the story ends but if you go to Trasmoz today you can hear all manner of fantastical tales about the town.

One of the claims is that the castle has supernatural origins, said that it was built by a magician (or sometimes necromancer) named Mutamín in a single night. After making a pact with the devil. This is one of the many stories referenced about the propaganda of the church against the town, but strangely this story didn't start appearing until the late 1800s, over 200 years after the town was cursed.

Maybe it has something to do with the fact that black stone was originally used to construct the castle (though it does not look black now) or maybe it has something to do with the poet and author Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer who happened to visit some time around 1860.

Bécquer's literature is the first published reference of castle's supernatural origins I could find, that and many of the stories about witches. Bécquer claims to have "collected" all these local stories about witches and the castle, and witches in the castle and then published them.

It's probably not a coincidence that most of these stories were written while Becquer was staying the Veruela monastery 

La Tia Casca

While it was rumored that Trasmoz was a den of witches, turns out there were people in the village that thought real witches lived among them

The most famous story is that of La Tia Casca, said to be the last witch killed in Trasmoz. This legend seeps into the very soil of the land in and around Tasmoz. The kind of story grandparents threatened young children with in years past, "better eat those vegetables, or La Tia Casca will come for you!"

General legend is that there had been a horrible plague, and Tia Casca had been a bit of a strange and secretive woman, so naturally she was blamed and was thrown off a cliff or into a well, I have seen both. I even saw one thing that said she was burnt at the stake

Much of the common narrative about Tia Casca comes from -surprise surprise- Bécquer. Bécquer's story about Casca appears to have been written around 1860, in it he writes about speaking with a pastor who tells him the tale of Casca's judgment

The pastor watched as the townfolk round up Casca, describing a withered old woman, a crone hunched with a tangled mess of hair. The townfolk yell there accusations, how she cursed a mule (who since hasn't eaten and died of starvation), how she allegedly beat one of their children in the middle of the night, claiming she poisoned the crops and bewitched the entire village. To this Casca responds

"I am a poor old woman who has not hurt anyone; I have no children or relatives who come to protect me. Forgive me have mercy on me!" From My Cell - Bequer

The townfolk attempt to kill her but she keeps coming back as she has 7 lives like cats (not 9 strangely, maybe she lost two already?) until they throw her into the ravine where she finally passes. The story ends with fears that Casca comes from a dynasty of witches which may turn on the town now.

It was this same story I saw regurgitated again and again, making finding if there was any truth to it a frustrating endeavor until I came across an article written by Cristina Ferrandez in "Cunning Folk Magazine". Ferrandez is an artist and an author, with a strong personal interest in folklore and witchcraft, with a particular soft spot for Spain because that's where she's from

Her mother grew up in Vera De Moncayo, another tiny village, about an hour's walk to Trasmoz. It was through her mother that she had first heard the stories of the witches of Trasmoz and Tia Casca, the stories her grandmother had threatened her with as a child. And it was with her mother she first walked the streets of Trasmoz in search of the same legend I now sought.

Ferrandez read through hundreds of references and morbid legends to try and find the truth of Tia Casca and discovered that the local government had also worked to solve the same mystery in 2000

"Their findings confirmed that Tía Casca really did exist and that she was indeed accused of witchcraft on this precipice in July 1860, a full century after the decline of witch hunts in Europe. My grandmother's grandmother would have been alive at the time.

Tía Casca's name was Joaquina Bona Sánchez. According to the records, she was born in 1813 and married to Tomás Pérez. The couple had four children. We know of her death because it was certified by Agustín García, parish priest at the church of Trasmoz. According to the certificate, Joaquina Bona died around three in the morning and did not receive her last rites. She was forty-six years old.
[…]
In all likelihood, Joaquina Bona was a local healer who used her knowledge of herbs and medicinal plants to help others." Veins of the Moncayo — Cunning Folk Magazine (cunning-folk.com)

In her search Ferrandez also happened upon an illustrated magazine from 1899 called Alrededor del mundo. In it contained a story written by Manuel Alhama, alias "Wanderer", who went on a similar hunt for the truth

In Trasmoz he finds a family, the Galgas, a close branch of the same family and direct relations to Casca

"He speaks at length with them, whom he describes as joyful of character (the mother) and pretty and bubbly (the daughter). The two tease him with allusions to balms, stones possessing supernatural qualities, mysterious necklaces and secret recipes.

Wanderer never manages to find out if the Galgas truly are witches, but he does amass great knowledge about the nature of the witchcraft practices that are said to be carried out in these and other Spanish parts" Veins of the Moncayo — Cunning Folk Magazine (cunning-folk.com)

Before Alhama leaves the Galgas he asks the mother if he can take a picture and she agrees

There are many rumored witches from Trasmoz, two of which are Tía Galga and her daughter, of whom readings of destiny and miraculous stews are remembered. In fact, they are fondly remembered because they solved many problems by applying remedies with plants that they collected from the slopes of the Moncayo. So maybe Casca's gifts were genetic after all 

Trasmoz Today

Today Trasmoz has a single tavern, and what remains of the castle houses a small witchcraft museum and a collection of black magic paraphernalia such as brooms, black crucifixes and cauldrons. It's rumored that black cats roam freely around the village

They could petition the church to lift its 700+ year old curse, but they never would, it has become a part of their cultural identity and the tourism it attracts is one of the few things that keeps Trasmoz alive, their annual witchcraft attracting somewhere around 6,000 tourists every year

Mayor Jesus Andia says

"We're not considering it, we're not going to do it. Getting rid of it now would be like erasing everything. I think future generations would never forgive us." ucatholic

"So far, being excommunicated and cursed hasn't been bad for us," said Lola Ruiz Diaz It's turned out to be a point in our favour." the guardian

About 20 years ago local officials announced subsidies for villages to hold events aimed at celebrating their unique characteristics. One village honed in on its tradition of ceramics, another choose woodworking.

When Trasmoz stopped to think what was really unique about them, the answer was immediate, the thing they were most well known for was witches.

So the annual Feria de Brujería – or witchcraft festival – was born, replete with tarot card readings, lotions and potions made from the healing and hallucinogenic herbs and plants that grow in the surrounding Moncayo mountain

Other events include:

• A local bakery hosts bread and sweets workshops for children and adults
• Pony and Horse rides
• Falconry exhibition
• Sale of tickets for MIGAS INFERNALES dinner with fried egg, soft drink, beer or wine (6 €), at LA TABERNA. 
• "Rest and eat" I am reading this from a Spanish site that google has translated, so I am assuming that this actually said "Siesta and lunch" or something along those lines based around the time of day.
• HISTORICAL RECREATION OF THE CURSE OF TRASMOZ in PLAZA DE ESPAÑA. 

Actors re-enact historical scenes, such as the rounding up and torture of presumed witches. And one lucky person gets named as the Witch of the Year "It's a way to recover the village's link to witches, while also reclaiming the persecution that these women were subjected to," said Ruiz.

The Witch of the Year and Witch of Honor are both highly respected titles, the recipients chosen by the municipality in the first case for their collaboration with the festival and with the town and in the second for their contribution to the world of culture. 

In a BBC article, the journalist meets with local witch Lola Ruiz Diaz. One of the few full time residents that remains, Ruiz had been nominated in 2008 to be the "Witch of the Year". When asked what you have to do to qualify for that she says

"Casting a spell? No, but I make a special liquid from sage and rosemary that you splash around you. People tell me it lifts depression, and that their streak of misfortune comes to an end as soon as they started using the liquid. Of course, you have to believe in it, otherwise it won't work." Lola Ruiz Diaz BBC

An interesting piece of reading I found after talking about tourism in relation to witches, fantastic read! https://www.nationalgeographic.com/travel/article/a-better-way-to-commemorate-the-witch-hunts

Full Source List

• https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/aug/22/excommunicated-spanish-witch-village-turns-curse-into-tourist-cash

• https://www.callejeandoporelplaneta.com/trasmoz-pueblo-maldito-brujas/ 

• https://elpais.com/politica/2017/03/21/diario_de_espana/1490115264_029317.html?event=go&event_log=go&prod=REGCRART&o=cerrado

• https://ucatholic.com/blog/when-the-pope-cursed-and-excommunicated-an-entire-village-of-witches/ 

• https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20160418-spains-cursed-village-of-witches 

• https://fascinatingspain.com/legend-of-spain/legends-of-aragon/only-excommunicated-village-world-spain/ 
  

• https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anexo:Abades_del_Monasterio_de_Veruela
  

• https://www.elespanol.com/reportajes/grandes-historias/20161014/162984406_0.html
  

• https://www.soulask.com/spains-mysterious-cursed-village-of-witches/#google_vignette

• https://identidadaragonesa.wordpress.com/2015/10/26/las-brujas-de-trasmoz/ 
  

• https://mimundoenunamaleta.com/las-brujas-de-trasmoz/
  

• https://www.cervantesvirtual.com/portales/gustavo_adolfo_becquer/obra-visor/desde-mi-celda--0/html/feedc204-82b1-11df-acc7-002185ce6064_3.html#I_8_ 
  

• https://www.adri.es/files/publicaciones/inventario_recursos_celtiberia_en_aragon.pdf#page=32
  

• https://www.cunning-folk.com/read-posts/veins-of-the-moncayo 
  

• https://identidadaragonesa.wordpress.com/2015/10/26/las-brujas-de-trasmoz/
  

• https://trasmoz.com/castillo-de-trasmoz/ 
  

• https://ifc.dpz.es/recursos/publicaciones/24/48/ebook2473.pdf 
  

• https://www.ideal.es/sociedad/unico-pueblo-excomulgado-20171031113808-nt.html 
  

• https://www.lavanguardia.com/ocio/viajes/20210409/6634525/trasmoz-unico-pueblo-oficialmente-excomulgado-maldito-toda-espana.html 
  

• https://viajes.nationalgeographic.com.es/a/unico-pueblo-maldito-espana-esta-aragon_18620

• https://www.guiarepsol.com/es/viajar/vamos-de-excursion/ruta-por-trasmoz-pueblo-excomulgado-de-espana-zaragoza/
  

• https://www.heraldo.es/noticias/aragon/zaragoza/2017/06/29/trasmoz-revive-este-sabado-maldicion-recreara-aquelarre-brujas-xvii-feria-brujeria-1184322-2261126.html